Slightly Noble Read online

  His mother had smiled at the news, a relieved rather than happy smile. “I can go home now,” she whispered before asking Jack to bury her at Ridge Point.

  It was the least he could do for a woman who had lost so much. But his father had added a damn codicil to his will, leaving Ridge Point and every farthing not entailed to his cousin, Morris.

  “There is no money, just this crumbling estate.” Morris smiled, looking around the dark, derelict library of Ram’s Head. “And Ridge Point. Which is now mine,” he added. The smug bastard.

  Jack clenched his fists, his stomach a mass of mangled knots. He couldn’t keep his mother’s casket in the cargo hold of his ship forever. It was making his crew nervous. It was making him nervous. The Confederate States of America had issued the burial certificate authorizing transport of her body to England, but the Confederacy was a defeated nation. And he was a fugitive from the Union.

  “What if I let you have the title and all other holdings? I just want Ridge Point.” He had to bury his mother at Ridge Point because he did not have the documents needed to bury her elsewhere in England. And he could not imagine transporting her remains back to America.

  Mr. Lambert held up a finger and shook it at Jack as if he were a naughty boy caught dipping snuff behind the stables. “No. No. No. You are Viscount Ardmore now whether you wish it or not, and Ram’s Head is an entailed estate. You cannot sell the house nor any land attached, nor can you bequeath it to anyone you choose. You do not truly own it. The Crown grants all rights to the current Viscount Ardmore to preserve the viscountcy and keep it in the main line of succession. Ridge Point, on the other hand, and most of the remaining money in the estate were part of your mother’s dowry. The title transferred to your father upon his marriage to your mother, but it is not entailed. Therefore, the former viscount was able to leave it to his sister’s child, Mr. Flick, despite the fact you are his son and the heir to the viscountcy.”

  Fury roared through Jack’s veins, hot and unrelenting. His father could not deny him Ram’s Head, so he had let it crumble into disrepair. Why? To remind Jack he did not consider him his son even if he was his legal heir?

  “I’ve lost Ridge Point. My mother’s birthplace. My birthplace.” There was no reason for him to stay in England, and yet, there was nothing left for him in America. He was a man with a title, but he had no place to call home, and no family he wished to claim.

  Mr. Lambert lowered his gaze. “Technically, yes.”

  Jack’s heart thumped against his ribs. “What do you mean, technically?”

  “Provincial colonial!” Morris snorted. “You have lost, and Ridge Point is mine.”

  Jack looked from his cousin to the fidgeting solicitor. Mr. Lambert shifted in his chair, raising and then lowering his gaze. Jack leaned forward, hands on hips, his famous lion’s scowl firmly in place. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Mr. Lambert cleared his throat and raised his gaze to Jack’s chest. “Your father added a second codicil to his will shortly before he died. If you can marry and produce an heir before your thirty-fifth birthday, Ridge Point is yours.”

  “The hell you say!” What twisted satisfaction did his father seek now?

  Jack had attempted to visit the viscount on his last journey to England nearly a year ago. His father refused to see him. The butler, however, had asked if Jack had brought his family, and he had admitted to being unwed.

  Had his father added the codicil then? Had he known he was dying? He damn sure knew Jack would turn thirty-five in December, just five months from now.

  Did he hate me that much?

  Even if he could find a wife so quickly…“She would have to be delivered of the child?”

  “Yes. And it would have to be a son.”

  “Then I have lost.” He turned woodenly and headed for the door.

  “There is still the matter of Ram’s Head and your duties as viscount,” Mr. Lambert said.

  Jack whirled on the aging man and snarled. “I don’t give a tinker’s damn about Ram’s Head or the title.”

  Lambert swallowed. “Then what of your tenants?”

  “They can fend for themselves as they have obviously done since my father obtained the title.” Slamming out the room, Jack crossed the foyer, snagged his frock coat from the startled butler, and took the crumbling front steps two at a time, nearly tripping over loose mortar and broken rocks as he went.

  If he could not have Ridge Point, he would bury his mother at sea. He didn’t need any damn documents or certificates for that.

  But Mother hated the ocean.

  Snarling, he slammed his hand against the side of the rented coach. The driver jumped to attention as Jack ripped open the door and slid inside. “Drive!”

  The coach jerked forward, awakening Jack’s traveling companion. Quentin Stanley sat up and stifled a yawn with his fist. “Did it not go well, Captain?”

  “No, Mr. Stanley. It did not.”

  Too refined and “pretty” to be a privateer, the dark-haired fifth son of an English earl was nevertheless an excellent quartermaster, despite his tendency to stick his patrician nose in where it did not belong. Yet, strangely enough, Quentin was one of the best friends Jack had ever had. So, it was easier than he thought to share the disappointing news.

  Afterwards, Quentin shook his head. “So, what next, oh fearless leader?”

  “Hell if I know.” Jack slumped in the seat, his long legs stretching out across the floor until his feet bumped up against the other side. “I guess we sail back to America.”

  “Better wait a few months,” Quentin said, his eyes somber in the dim light shining into the coach. “You sail into any port in America now and the Yankees will confiscate the Lion’s Pride for sure and most likely arrest her captain.”

  “It is a possibility,” Jack agreed.

  “It is a certainty, and you know it. The Union army is not going to grant amnesty to the privateer who gave them hell for the past two years.”

  Despite the direness of his current situation, Jack smiled. His crew had given the Union army hell. They had spent the last two years attacking Union ships and slipping past their blockades to keep the Confederacy afloat—not that it had done a damn bit of good. The Confederacy was doomed long before his adopted countrymen fired the first shot on Morris Island. But after four long years, the conflict was finally over.

  At times, it seemed as if a lifetime had passed.

  Jack sighed and leaned his head back against the wall of the coach. “I guess we return to Seile. I’m not ready to retire with Uncle William, but we can keep the ship moored there until we develop a new strategy.”

  “I think our next move should be to find a couple of warm and willing women,” Quentin said with a smile.

  Jack sat upright, leaned forward, and slapped Quentin’s knee. “That’s a damn fine idea, Quent. Damn fine indeed.”

  Unfortunately, the women they came across a half hour later were neither warm nor willing.

  And one of them was a nun.

  Chapter Two

  “Beggin’ yer pardon, governor, but there be a coach in the middle of the road, blocking the way,” the coachman said when he stuck his head inside the conveyance. His cockney accent was so heavy Jack could barely understand him. He looked to Quentin for clarification.

  “Can we go around them?” Quentin asked. “We are anxious to get back to Seile.”

  Anxious to find those warm, willing women.

  The driver frowned. “There be women inside, and it looks like they broke an axle.”

  “Damn.” Jack straightened. “I suppose we could offer our assistance and speed things along.”

  “After you.” Quentin held out his hand and then followed Jack from the coach. The driver climbed back into his box, pulled his wool cap over his eyes, and settled in for a nap.

  It had better be a short one, Jack groused to himself.

  As he and Quentin approached the disabled carriage, a high-pitched scream rent the air.
Jack and his quartermaster exchanged glances.

  What the hell are we getting into now?

  Quentin shrugged but dropped his hands to his side—as did Jack—both prepared to pull their weapons from under the fancy frock coats they had worn to Ram’s Head. Jack carried a knife and his Colt 1860 revolver. The six-shooter was reliable and efficient, especially at close range. And damn, if he hadn’t been far too close to danger for most of his adult life. He glanced at Quentin, smiling at his friend’s preference for the Confederate soldier’s weapon of choice, the nine-shot LeMat.

  The driver of the disabled vehicle stepped around the corner holding an old flintlock. “We ain’t got nothing of value so move on to another mark,” he said, taking aim. The single-shot pistol had a short range and best served a man as an adjunct to a sword or cutlass. The coachman carried nothing more than an old hunting knife in a worn scabbard. Jack had to hand it to him. He had guts.

  “We are not highwaymen,” Quentin said before nodding to Jack. “This is the Viscount Ardmore, and you are blocking the road.”

  Jack frowned, unused to his newly acquired title and liking it even less. He preferred Captain Jack to viscount. Hell, he preferred highwayman to viscount. If he could not have Ridge Point, he wanted nothing of his father’s, including his damn, useless title.

  The driver shrugged and tucked his weapon into his waistband. “Can’t be helped, milord. We broke an axle, and I ain’t got the tools to fix it.”

  Jack pointed to the carriage. “What’s going on? We heard a woman scream.”

  The driver shrugged and pulled his knife. “They be women,” he said as if that answered the question. Then he used the tip of his blade to clean dirt from under his grubby nails as if unconcerned that one of them had just let out a blood-curdling scream.

  Throwing caution to the wind, Jack stepped forward and pulled open the carriage door. A woman inside screamed again, but she wasn’t being ravished. It appeared that had already happened, and she was now giving birth. She lay against the squabs in a rumpled brown robe, her belly huge and heaving, while a nun knelt between her upraised knees and blood dripped onto the floor.

  Jack backed out of the coach so quickly he nearly fell over Quentin.

  “What the…” Quentin brushed past him and stuck his head inside, only to back out again just as quickly. “A woman giving birth!”

  “I know that!” Jack’s heart pounded in his throat. The woman had clutched her distended belly while blood dripped to the floor as if the child had already torn her in half. His stomach churned. Did women usually bleed when giving birth?

  “Inside the coach,” Quentin added, as if Jack were too stupid to notice.

  A young, stern-faced nun stuck her head outside and glared at them as if he and Quentin were somehow responsible for her charge’s condition. “Something is wrong. I need to get her to Sheep’s Crossing.”

  Quentin’s face turned stark white. “The woman needs a birthing, not a shearing.”

  “We just came from Sheep’s Crossing,” Jack added. “There’s nothing there but sheep.” And Ram’s Head. And he did not want to go back. He and Quentin had been stuck in Sheep’s Crossing for three months. It had taken that long for Jack to answer Her Majesty’s Writ of Summons so he could claim Ram’s Head as the rightful heir.

  He had sailed to England often over the years, but for the most part, he had stayed with the Earl of Gilchrest, Chad Masters, and his American wife, Nikki. He hadn’t actually lived in England since he was eleven, and he had never realized how difficult it could be for a noble to inherit.

  In America, a simple reading of the will would have granted him his rightful inheritance. But he was a noble heir, and heirs could not just accede to a title without petitioning the crown for a writ of summons to Parliament. Then the pedigree had to be examined, new patent letters prepared, and the title published before he was even called to Lords. And Uncle William had been away as long as he had.

  Thank God, Quentin’s father and Gilchrest had vouched for him. Otherwise, he might never have proved his claim. But what good was a noble title if he could not bury his mother at Ridge Point? And now another delay.

  The nun drew her brows together, and her angular face looked sharp enough to cut glass. “There is a vicar in Sheep’s Crossing. He is a pious man, and his niece is a midwife. Take us there.”

  “Not bloody likely! Moving the woman might kill her.” Quentin held up his hands, his expression as horrified as if the nun had asked them to captain a ship full of lepers.

  Jack was just as terrified. “Can you not do something for her?”

  The nun’s face turned red, and her eyes flashed. “She is losing too much blood. Without a midwife, the babe may die.”

  Was it already too late to save the mother? There was so much blood. Jack feared any further movement would kill her for sure. He nodded toward the coachman. He had apparently cleaned all the dirt from his nails and was now picking his teeth with the same dirty blade. “Why didn’t your driver unhitch the horses and ride for help after the axle broke?”

  The nun cast a surreptitious glance toward the man in question. “Mr. Piebald is my brother’s driver. We were on our way to my sister’s boarding house in Shrivenham when Abby started bleeding. She screamed and Mr. Piebald panicked. He took a turn too fast and snapped an axle. He knows Abby is gently reared and recently widowed, and he was afraid to leave us alone and unprotected.”

  Another heartbreaking cry echoed from inside the dark recesses of the coach. Jack cringed and took a step back. “Perhaps I should ride one of the horses to Sheep’s Crossing and fetch the midwife.”

  “There is no time,” the nun said as the harsh lines of her face softened into a sad smile. “Please. Can you not take us to Sheep’s Crossing? It is less than five miles from here.”

  Five miles in the opposite direction—a direction in which they had just come.

  Jack raked a hand through his overlong hair, dislodging strands from the queue tied at the nape of his neck. Then with a curse, he gently nudged the nun aside and climbed into the coach. The hot, sour air nearly stole his breath.

  As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he took in the woman lying across the squabs, her slender fingers moving in concentric circles over her abdomen as she moaned low in her throat and chanted. “Don’t let my baby die. Please don’t let my baby die.”

  Jack offered an encouraging smile, but sweat darkened the ash blonde hair hanging over her face, concealing her features. Then she raised a stubborn chin, piercing him with pain-filled blue eyes—eyes that seemed to tug at his soul. Shaking off a sense of déjà vu, he bent forward and scooped her into his arms.

  “Put me down. You could jostle the baby,” she whimpered, as if afraid the child would drop out onto the carriage floor.

  Jack’s stomach churned. Was that even a possibility? He looked down, praying he would not see a baby dangling from its umbilical cord. He saw blood instead. Lots of blood.

  His foot slipped. The woman in his arms gasped, her weakened grip tightening around his neck. “Please put me down.” She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Not just yet, madam. Now hold tight.”

  Turning toward the door, his burden held close, he ducked low so he could step down without bumping his head. Their foreheads knocked together. Her eyes flew open.

  “If you are a highwayman, you have chosen the wrong coach.” Her words were strong although slightly slurred, as if the nun had given her something to ease the pain. “I have no jewels or money, and I am in no condition to tempt a man.”

  Jack chuckled and nearly tripped. Most women in her situation would be screaming hysterically, afraid of what a big man like himself planned to do to her. This feisty young woman looked as if she held a reserve of strength at the ready. And from the looks of her swollen belly, she would soon need it.

  Shaking his head, he turned as Quentin rushed forward to hold the door open to their rented coach. Sister Mary Daphne followed close on his heels an
d watched as Quentin helped Jack climb in and settle back on the seat with the widow on his lap. He prayed the bleeding would stop and the baby would not come. He didn’t know a damn thing about birthing a baby.

  Quentin climbed in after him. The nun paused before following them inside. “Climb aboard, Mr. Piebald,” she shouted to her driver.

  The coach rocked as Mr. Piebald climbed up top with Jack’s driver. Then the vehicle lurched forward as another contraction rippled through the young woman’s body.

  Crying out, she sat up abruptly, nearly hitting Jack’s chin with the top of her head. Then she doubled over and nearly fell forward off his lap.

  The nun dropped to her knees on the floor at Jack’s feet. “Not much longer.” She gently brushed the long, limp strands of hair from the young widow’s face. “Be strong for the baby, the sweet innocent little baby.”

  The widow’s answering moan was fraught with such pain it tore at Jack’s soul. He looked across the carriage at Quentin who sat stiff and pale on the opposite seat.

  “Is she having the child now? Do we need to stop the carriage?” Quentin sounded as nervous as an expectant father.

  “It is just a contraction,” the nun said calmly, but Jack’s pulse raced.

  “Maybe we should have stayed until after the birth.” Tension eased from the woman’s body, forcing Jack to tighten his hold so she would not slump to the floor.

  The nun rose from her knees and slid onto the seat next to Quentin. “It will be hours yet,” she said. “Perhaps even days, which would not bode well for the baby, and we need to save this child.”

  And what of the child’s mother?

  Chapter Three

  Jack looked down at the woman leaning against his chest, eyes closed as if she slept. Her hair, though damp with sweat, looked healthy and alive, and though her cheeks were red with exertion, she was not tanned from the sun.